


The Steve Rogers Appreciation Club

by rinnya



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Appreciation Club, Blue Eyes, Blushing, Crushes, F/M, Friendship, Gen, Hair, M/M, Not Everybody Hated Steve Rogers, Period Typical Attitudes, Period-Typical Homophobia, Post-Captain America: The First Avenger, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, Pre-Captain America: The First Avenger, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, Secret Admirer, Some People Thought He Was Cute
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-07-13
Packaged: 2018-11-19 05:35:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11306766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rinnya/pseuds/rinnya
Summary: “Wow,” Mary says, “did you see him blush? Boys shouldn’t blush pretty like that, not even someone with such blue eyes like Steve Rogers.”“You notice his eyes too,” Amanda says, “deep, beautiful, blue. Just amazing!”“Well, damn if I want to see more of his eyes,” Mary says, “too bad Bucky Barnes doesn’t have those eyes.”“I think Steve Rogers with those eyes is good enough,” Amanda defends, and Mary turns over with absolute glee in her eyes and says, “well, I guess you’ve always had a bit of a thing for pretty little blue eyed blonds, huh, Amanda. And them being artistic and willing to jump into a scrap to defend you from guys 3 times bigger than he is, that is just a bonus, isn’t it?”And this is how the Steve Rogers’s Appreciation Club officially starts.





	1. Amanda remembers how the Steve Rogers Appreciation Club starts

**Author's Note:**

> Join the Steve Rogers Appreciation Club

**Amanda remembers how The Steve Rogers Appreciation Club starts**

She remembers Steve Rogers differently. She doesn’t remember him as the glorified war hero, the showman prancing across stages to dazzle his audience, that propaganda posters beautifully portray in vibrant technicolour - even though, she admits, it is not a terrible image to remember him by, because she could give a rat’s ass about what Henry thought when she said she wanted Captain America to bench press her. She doesn’t remember him, neither, as who Henry remembers - the captain of soldiers, who holds his shield not as a stage prop but as a weapon, charging through enemy lines and leading his men to victory.

Amanda remembers Steve Rogers, way back when he was scrawny and fighting like a starved stray cat and tucked under the crook of Bucky Barnes’s arm, when he spat on the ground and smoked asthma cigarettes and got thrown into dumpsters in dingy alleyways.

But Amanda  _ actually _ remembers Steve Rogers, as the small blond who sits in front of her in her high school art class and clicks colours onto his canvas with remarkable precision and lifelike detail when herself could barely sketch the curves of the boring bowl of fruit.

She remembers reaching over and nudging Mary, who startles and fumbles on her paintbrush and gets a streak of red on her old dress she bunched up on her lap as an apron- it’s joins many other paint splatters which hardly makes a single bit of difference, but Mary frowns at her anyways. Amanda motions to Steve Rogers and they both lean forward and gasp and watch as Steve Rogers delivers a beautiful rendering of an apple and a grape and a banana in a wonky ceramic bowl.

She remembers seeing Steve Rogers on the ground in his own blood and surrounded by men three times his size, and Anne from English brushing him off when he tries to speak to her, and Bucky Barnes elbowing him in a friendly way and grinning one of his heartthrob boyish smiles - but she remembers, more clearly than all those events, the startling deep  _ stunning _ blue of Steve Rogers’s eyes when he turns around and sees her and Mary staring over his shoulder at his painting.

“Oh,” he breathes, wide eyes and surprised, his voice deep and raspy, and Amanda can see a bit of green in the blue of his eyes and she remembers thinking, what beautiful eyes he has!

“Your art’s really good,” Mary says, after a beat too long of silence from herself, and Steve Rogers turns a summery shade of pink - no boy should be able to blush this prettily, not even someone with such large stunning eyes like Steve Rogers. It’s just not right.

“You ought to put a couple of your works up on the school halls,” Mary says again, filling in the awkward silence with her blessed chatter, “Percy has a lot of his stuff up, and don’t tell him I said this, but they ain’t half as good as yours.”

And Steve Rogers turns a deeper shade of that pretty pink and nods and says, “oh, uh, sure,” and Mary’s eyes sparkle with mischief like she wants to say something else and see how deep that blush goes - because damn, Amanda would be lying if she said she wasn’t the tiniest bit curious, and Steve Rogers turns away and starts to dash paint with his brush again.

Amanda turns back to her own canvas and Mary to hers, but she keeps an eye on Steve Rogers, who has red the colour of her rogue on the tip of his ears and a swift stroke in his wrist with his brush, and she watches him from the corner of his eyes and thinks that maybe Steve Rogers isn’t so bad like Anne and those other girls say he is - sure, he may not be his best friend but doesn’t Steve Rogers have some charm of his own kind? 

A bit skinny, a figure like a dame’s, like herself, Amanda thinks, bony and a list of health ailments longer than the list of boys Tanya’s kissed behind the diner on 6th street - and that is a very long list, but, those eyes! Amanda wouldn’t mind staring into those eyes. Would make many more girls swoon if those eyes were attached to Bucky Barnes because that boy with Steve’s eyes! What a charmer he would be!

Well, Amanda thinks, that doesn’t leave much love for Steve Rogers at all, does it? How many girls have seen Steve Rogers’s large pretty blue eyes long enough to appreciate them? Is that why Bucky Barnes hangs around him so much? Enraptured by that deep gorgeous ocean - well, she would be too, Amanda supposes, and since she’s still thinking about it, she may already be.

Damn, blue eyed blonds are a weakness of hers. Chase Turner in the soccer team may be slightly taller and decked in muscles, but even he can’t compete with Steve Rogers!

Amanda looks over the back of Steve Rogers’s head appreciatively, because speaking of blonds. The sweet honeyed yellow of Steve Rogers’s hair is just something else, isn’t it, a colour she would very much like on her own locks - hers is just a shade of brown almost light enough to be blond, pretty but yet it doesn’t shine like sunflowers under the light like Steve Rogers’s! She would very much want to run her hands through the soft golden hair, looking into those large blue eyes - oh, Amanda! 

“Wow,” Mary says, much later when they’re lounging in her house with their homework in front of them, “did you see him blush? Boys shouldn’t blush pretty like that, not even someone with such blue eyes like Steve Rogers.”

“You notice his eyes too,” Amanda remembers saying, something along the lines, “deep, beautiful, blue. Just amazing!”

“Well, damn if I want to see more of his eyes,” Mary says, or something similar, “too bad Bucky Barnes doesn’t have those eyes.”

“I think Steve Rogers with those eyes is good enough,” Amanda defends, and Mary turns over with absolute glee in her eyes and Amanda may be blushing, she doesn’t remember, but she does remember Mary sighing dramatically and saying, “well, I guess you’ve always had a bit of a thing for pretty little blue eyed blonds, huh, Amanda. And them being artistic and willing to jump into a scrap to defend you from guys 3 times bigger than he is, that is just a bonus, isn’t it?”

And this is how the Steve Rogers’s Appreciation Club officially starts.


	2. Amanda remembers the third member in the Steve Rogers Appreciation Club and they appreciate Steve Rogers a little more

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re a creeper,” Amanda remembers Mary telling her, as if she wasn’t doing her share of Steve Rogers watching of her own. Appreciating, not watching, she tells herself, like how someone would stand and stare at a piece of beautiful artwork for hours shamelessly without anyone passing judgement - it just so happened that Steve Rogers was the artwork in this scenario.
> 
> “You have it bad, Jones,” Amanda also remembers Julie say, as she slides into the seat across her with her lunch pack and obstructs her amazing view of Steve Rogers and Steve Rogers’s eyes and Steve Rogers’s hair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Appreciating Steve Rogers

Amanda remembers the third member of the Steve Rogers Appreciation Club, Julie from Art Class as well. Mere acquaintances, Amanda and Julie before the Club, but afterwards fast friends and her and Mary found out that their duo could accommodate three - Julie, who one day comes over and looks over Steve Rogers’s shoulders and tucks a stray lock of hair behind her ear and says, “gosh, Steve, you’re really good at this. Do you think you can help me with something?”

Steve Rogers startles, again, and blushes, again, and both herself and Mary lean forward to appreciate the blue when he turns around and damn, Julie is blocking her view, but Amanda can see the ring of green around his pupil and the pretty pink dusting his cheeks so she supposes that will do for now.

“Sorry? Yes? I can help you?” Steve says, and his voice is deeper than it has any right to be, especially from someone as small and as slight as he is, but it’s a voice she would imagine from a radio host or someone of a high post, not all 5 foot something of little Steve Rogers - Amanda will think of this, some time later, as foreshadowing of some sort, but that is not the point. The point was Steve Rogers’s pretty blue eyes and blush and Julie looking expectedly down at him with a cute dimpled grin.

“Draw me a portrait,” Julie says, “for my father’s birthday. I’ll pay you.”

“I, that’s,” Steve Rogers says, blinking in confusion and damn if that’s not an adorable sight, “sure.”

Julie beams at him, again, and maybe Amanda could ask Steve Rogers to draw her a portrait too, if it would get Steve Rogers to look at her with those large blue eyes. Mary is staring at her with something in her own eyes - green and soft and cute with her freckled nose but nothing against Steve Rogers’s blue, a glint of some sort, and a smirk. Amanda ignores it.

“Thanks, Steve. Give me your number. I’ll call you,” and Steve Rogers scribbles down a string of numbers on her sketchpad with his artist’s handwriting and artist’s hands that Amanda has not noticed before but oh, hey, artist hands. 

“Join the club,” Mary whispers, not loud enough for Steve Rogers to hear, especially not being half deaf, but Julie catches it.

“Club?” 

“The Steve Rogers’s Appreciation Club,” Mary whispers again, pauses, then adds, “for blue eyes and blond hair. Especially the eyes.”

Julie looks at them strangely for a moment, then taps Steve Rogers on the shoulder. Steve Rogers turns around with large and confused but bright and pretty-as-ever eyes and the three of them stare at his eyes, appreciatively, until Steve Rogers realizes with another blush that there is nothing, in fact, that Julie needed to ask him, and turns around again. The loss of his blue eyes is sad.

“Damn,” Julie says, appreciatively, and winks at Mary and her conspiratorially. 

“Yes, damn,” Mary says.

And what is that feeling? Amanda will refuse to admit that it’s jealousy - Steve Rogers’s blue eyes aren’t just for her but oh, how she wanted them to be! And Mary is her best friend so she admits that they can both admire Steve Rogers’s eyes but who is Julie? A great friend, she will find out much later, but Amanda is slightly ashamed when she remembers the negativity in her at this moment, directed at Julie, a bit of jealousy and a dash of spite and a lot more selfishness that she would have liked, but oh, Amanda thinks she has a pretty good reason now, and many years later she would still think she had a pretty good reason back then, as she would tell Julie and Mary over a cup of tea in her living room.

\--

“You’re a creeper,” Amanda remembers Mary telling her, as if she wasn’t doing her share of Steve Rogers watching of her own. Appreciating, not watching, she tells herself, like how someone would stand and stare at a piece of beautiful artwork for hours shamelessly without anyone passing judgement - it just so happened that Steve Rogers was the artwork in this scenario.

“You have it bad, Jones,” Amanda also remembers Julie say, as she slides into the seat across her with her lunch pack and obstructs her amazing view of Steve Rogers and Steve Rogers’s eyes and Steve Rogers’s hair. 

To someone else, maybe, it would seem like she was watching not Steve Rogers but his best friend Bucky Barnes, who was currently pressed between Steve Rogers and Paul Henry, and was talking loudly with the latter with Steve Rogers tucked to his side and silently eating his sandwich. Amanda almost hates it, hates the feeling that Steve Rogers has at that moment, to be in a group of people yet excluded, but Bucky Barnes has an arm around Steve Rogers and squeezes his shoulders and turns to him and says something, so at least his best friend doesn’t push him away even if Paul Henry glances over Steve Rogers’s head.

“Isn’t that sad,” Mary says, and yes, it is.

Paul Henry catches Amanda’s gaze, and she turns away but he gestures grandly to their table, as if to say, look at the girls looking at you, Bucky Barnes! Bucky Barnes stares over and gives them a stunning grin and squeezes Steve Rogers to his side again and maybe Amanda would have paid Bucky Barnes some mind, maybe, if Steve Rogers hadn’t looked up with large blue eyes and an adorable tilt of his head.

Mary waves dramatically. Of course she does, because Mary has no shame and Amanda has to be the humility for both of them. Paul Henry waggles his eyebrows and Bucky Barnes waves back, smiling his boyish dimpled grin that Amanda knows that Mary likes but Mary is a good friend and ignores him in favor for waving harder and staring pointedly at Steve Rogers, until Paul Henry looks rather bewildered and Bucky Barnes is lowering his hand in confusion and Steve Rogers has a bright red face that Amanda can see from across the room.

Then Steve Rogers finally, meekly waves back, head ducked bashfully and a pretty pink and then Mary sits back satisfied. Amanda remembers looking up, seeing Steve Rogers picking at his food with some awkwardness and Bucky Barnes looking just absolutely delighted! Bucky Barnes is elbowing Steve Rogers and ruffling his hair and preening like he was under the spotlight instead of his best friend, and he turns and grins brightly at them and Amanda thinks, that Bucky Barnes’s smile is gorgeous and stunning has nothing on Steve Rogers’s.

Amanda remembers seeing them later, after her last class of the day, when Julie catches up behind her and Mary and elbows her in the side and says, “hey, there’s Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes.” And there they were, Steve Rogers with his arm folded and his red face and saying something that has Bucky Barnes practically jumping up and down with glee, never mind that he is holding both their books, and Bucky Barnes just looks up and shifts the books to his left hand and starts waving with his right. Mary and Julie wave back, of course, and Amanda does too, ignoring the gaggle of students watching them and no doubt replaying the lunchroom incident - oh Mary, dear gosh!

And Steve Rogers tentatively waves back and Bucky Barnes is grinning broadly and winks at them, and it wouldn’t be so bad except that Mary winks back and Bucky Barnes looks like a cat that has gotten the cream and Steve Rogers is desperately trying to pull his larger friend away, and his blue eyes are wide and panicked and yet Amanda finds it adorable, and Julie is grinning at her too and Amanda is done for.

\--

Amanda remembers the next time in Art Class, Steve Rogers walks over with his bag clutched in his arms and Mary waves again when she sees him and he waves back, a blush dusted on his face and a shy smile peeking out and Amanda waves too, and Steve Rogers’s happy blue eyes go over to her so Amanda thinks it is worth it.

People have been talking, Amanda remembers hearing, about Mary McCarthy and how she might like Steve Rogers better than Bucky Barnes and from the whispers around her that erupted, she knows that this would be added to the rumors - and Amanda does blames herself for not being able to be as openly brave as Mary and Mary just sighs and says, “that’s what friends are for,” and Amanda has a warm feeling inside.

Julie catches her eye from her side of the room and winks, and Amanda may be blushing a little and Mary winks back and this action is not unnoticed but Julie ignores Benjamin Grady’s stares and turns back to her canvas, a painting of the view outside her window.

Steve Rogers is back to his own canvas, the outline of the imagined forest already sketched in pencil and Amanda can imagine it completed already with soft green and blue hues and dashes of yellow for the sunlight filtering through the canopy, and Mary is giggling at her so she needs to stop staring.

She does work on her own landscape, a bit by a bit, taking breaks to appreciate Steve Rogers and she sees that Mary and Julie do the same, too. It’s a little disappointing, without the blue eyes, but his soft and short blond hair deserves as much love as all the other parts of Steve Rogers so Amanda lets herself appreciate it as much as she can without being too creepy. Julie, sitting in the front, can see those pretty blue eyes when she turns back and Amanda is not jealous, she is not, shut up Mary, and the fact she wants to appreciate Steve Rogers by herself isn’t jealousy, shut up Mary!

Art Class finally ends and Steve Rogers finally turns around and his cheeks are still the shy shade of crimson and Amanda lets herself appreciate how they complement his cheerful blue eyes, and Steve gives a small wave and says “bye” to her and Mary before he all but dashes out of the classroom.

His voice. Amanda can appreciate that, too.


	3. Amanda remembers more members joining the Steve Rogers Appreciation Club and herself finally doing something about Steve Rogers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for supporting my weird little story, and listening to Amanda remember Steve Rogers before Captain America!

Cassandra is the fourth member of the Steve Rogers Appreciation Club, who Amanda remembers one day slid into their seat at the lunch room table and said, “Are you three watching Bucky Barnes or Steve Rogers? Rumors are going around that-”

“I’ve heard the rumors,” Mary tells her, “we’re Steve Rogers Appreciating.”

“Appreciating,” Cassandra deadpans. Cassandra is not a bad girl, an acquaintance of hers and Julie at this time and maybe a better friend of Mary’s, especially if Mary would tell her about their Steve Rogers Appreciation Club, but then again Mary never hid this kind of things really well.

“The Steve Rogers Appreciation Club,” Mary tells her, “we appreciate blue eyes and blond hair and pretty blushes.”

“And deep husky voices,” Julie purrs, glancing at Amanda. Julie is more attentive than Amanda would give her credit for -  she would not tell Julie, of course, because that would just go to her head, but Julie is good at picking up these small details. 

“His voice is pretty nice,” Cassandra says, “especially when he’s arguing with the teacher in my class. Then after that he gets into an asthma attack and Bucky Barnes comes over.”

“Bucky Barnes,” Mary waves her hand, “is of no matter. This is for Steve Rogers Appreciating. Appreciate us with him.”

Cassandra turns around, and Steve Rogers is biting into his sandwich and Bucky Barnes reaches over him and plucks a biscuit off Steve Rogers’s plate and gets a dirty look in return. Steve Rogers snorts unflatteringly and Amanda is so done because that should not be adorable, shut up Mary, and he elbows Bucky Barnes and nicks a spoonful of fruit of the latters plate as well.

“He is kinda cute,” Cassandra finally admits, “I mean, if you’re into that sort of thing.”

“That sort of thing,” Mary says, eyes narrowed, defensively for Amanda, which she is grateful for.

“You know, the smaller guys kind of thing? He’s my size, and people usually overlook him, I guess,” Cassandra pauses consideringly, “but well, you’re right. His eyes are pretty. Really blue. If only Bucky Barnes had these eyes.”

“Well I think that Steve Rogers with those eyes looks good enough,” Amanda finally says, and Cassandra turns to her and stares for a short moment before shrugging, “sure,” and suddenly the Steve Rogers Appreciation Table has another member during lunch.

\--

Amanda remembers the fifth and sixth members of the Steve Rogers Appreciation Club, Jessica and Jack, twins who Cassandra metaphorically took by the hand and led into their little ragtag club during their unofficial meeting table during the lunch period.

Amanda remembers Jess, who beams and says, “Steve Rogers! He stopped a couple of boys from harassing me last time,” and Jack, who wrinkles his nose at the table full of girls and says, “at least I’ll look popular with the ladies,” until Jessica elbows him sharply in the ribs and he punches her in the shoulder and tells the group about the time Steve Rogers went off on the football team for pushing Jack into the locker and then got pushed into one himself.   
Amanda also remembers the seventh member of the Steve Rogers Appreciation Club, Charlie who wanders over on a Tuesday afternoon and sat down next to Jack and says, “Is this the Steve Rogers Appreciation Club or something, man?”

“Yep,” Jack says, leaning forward, “here to finally join in?”

“I’m not queer,” Charlie tells them all, wrinkling his freckled nose and jabbing Jack in the knee, “Jack told me about your little Club when I told him that Steve Rogers saved my cat from a couple’a assholes, once. Just here to show my, uh, support?”

“You’re welcome here any time,” Mary says, and cranes her neck to see Steve Rogers cuffing Bucky Barnes on the ear for stealing his peach.

“Nah, I’m not doing some weird Steve Rogers watching. You guys are creepy, and I’m straight,” Charlie says, “but if he’s getting his face beat in and Bucky Barnes ain’t around, you can call me.”

“Love to,” Julie purrs, who’s leaning over the table and getting her hair in Amanda’s view of Steve Rogers, who is currently laughing at something Bucky Barnes did.

“You, darling, can call me anytime,” Charlie grins boyishly, and he’s attractive looking but his hair is not blond enough and his eyes are not blue enough and his voice ain’t quite deep enough and Mary is faux-gagging somewhere, either because of Charlie and Julie’s terrible flirting or the fact that Amanda is so fixated on Steve Rogers she doesn’t notice that Charlie is dragging Julie away until Julie accidentally elbows her when she tries to get out of her seat.

“Shove over,” Julie says, “you can continue Appreciating Steve Rogers after this 5 seconds. Take my seat.”

Amanda does, shooting Julie a glare but Julie has a better view of Steve Rogers than she does, wow, that is so not fair, not like she’s jealous or anything, shut up Mary!

God. What does it take to give one guy the appreciation he deserves?

\--

Amanda remembers when Julie says “You should come over again on Saturday,” to her and Mary, a week after Charlie has dragged her off to make out in the janitor’s closet and then brought her out on a proper date with milkshakes and two tickets to the romance flick that’s showing in the cinemas.

“Don’t you and Charlie have a date then?” Mary says, slightly unconcerned, flipping the page of the textbook. She’s sprawled on Julie’s bedroom floor.

“Nah,” Julie says, “Steve Rogers is coming over to do my father’s portrait.”

Amanda perks up, and she doesn’t remember what Julie says after that, but she does remember Mary rolling her eyes rather fondly in her direction, and Julie flipping her hair over her shoulder.

“This is going to be a day to remember,” Mary murmurs.

And Amanda remembers, oh how well she remembers.

**\--**

“Um, hi,” Amanda remembers Steve Rogers saying, a pad of paper tucked under his arm and a canvas bag slung over his shoulder.

“Hey Steve,” Julie greets, and behind her, Mary waves. Amanda remembers waving too, and seeing a pretty blush blossom across Steve Rogers’s face and his bright eyes sparkle and Mary jabs her in the side and says, “you’re staring.”

Amanda stares all the time, but she supposes it’s different with Steve Rogers actually there and present and close enough to notice the staring.

Julie’s father, a large man with a large voice, stops at the doorway and narrows his eyes and says, “what happened to Charlie? I thought he was a nice boy.”

Steve Rogers is blushing terribly hard now. He runs nice and long artist fingers through his hair, and his fringe falls away from his eyes which is absolutely adorable and Amanda would be lying if she said she didn’t want to run her own fingers through that hair and stare in those eyes some more and Mary elbows her, again.

“Daddy,” Julie gasps, scandalized, “Charlie’s fine. This is Steve Rogers. He’s here to draw you. My art classmate? You didn’t forget, did you?”

“Oh,” Julie’s father says, considering, then nods and steps away to welcome Steve Rogers into the house. Amanda is not staring, no matter how much Mary tries to convince her that she is. 

“Where would be good for you?” Julie’s father is asking Steve Rogers, who says, “somewhere with natural lighting? A window, perhaps?” 

His voice is really nice, and deep, Amanda remembers, something she can imagine curling over her ear in lazy mornings or a voice she can hear complimenting her on maybe her hair, or her dress, and where is Amanda going with these thoughts? Absolutely nowhere good, that’s where. She barely knows Steve Rogers!

Amanda remembers thinking that maybe Mary is right, maybe she’s staring just a bit too much.

Amanda also remembers deciding to never tell Mary that. Ever.

\--

Amanda doesn’t remember most of what happens, mostly, even she knows that it involves poking Julie and Mary and Appreciating Steve Rogers and Steve Rogers’s artwork, and chatting about Charlie and Bucky Barnes and maybe even bringing up Steve Rogers somewhere in the conversation, and also Appreciating the way the red blush rides up the back of Steve Rogers’s neck when he hears his name being brought up.

But what Amanda really does remember, and she maybe blames Mary, scratch that, she definitely blames Mary, is the way Steve Rogers’s beautiful blue eyes light up and the way his pretty dusty blush grows darker when Amanda asks him out on a date. 

Somewhat a date.

“You’re really good at art,” Amanda remembers saying something like that, along the lines, when they're outside the house after Julie's father claps Steve Rogers on the back and sent him off with a sum of money and a chocolate chip cookie. Her own blush is scarlet against her cheek and she sends a sharp look to Mary and Julie waving frantically from where Steve Rogers cannot see them.

“I,” Steve Rogers sounds and seems flustered, and it’s the goddamn most adorable thing Amanda has seen, she wants to run her hands through his hair and pull his face to meet hers when he ducks his head. 

Steve Rogers stammers, blushes even more, wrings his hands, and finally splutters out a “Thank you,” and Amanda is struck by the sudden imaginary scene of Bucky Barnes urging Steve Rogers from behind the house like how Mary and Julie are doing - oh, Mary is making an extremely obscene gesture with her hands right now and Amanda is not going to look at her. Nope.

And Amanda doesn’t remember where the sudden bout of bravery comes from, no, but she does remember holding her head high and smiling the smile that got Connor O’Brien melting into a soft lump of putty by her feet back when they were dating - or, rather, the middle school equivalent of dating, for that matter - and saying, “you should come over and teach me how to draw sometime.”

Steve Rogers is blushing even harder now and Julie is hopping up and down and waving her arms frantically, while Mary is, Mary is doing another gesture with her fingers that Amanda would not even bother to think about, definitely not, and Amanda holds eye contact with Steve Rogers and Appreciates his gorgeous baby blues for a while longer until he drops his head and hides his blush and shrugs in the most absolutely adorable way possible!

And he says, “Yeah, okay, sure,” and Amanda remembers the absolute look of glee she has on her face right now, thank gosh Steve Rogers isn’t looking up right now, and Julie has tackled Mary to the ground which is good because Mary needs to stop!


End file.
